Change or permanence? The controversy of Heraclitus and Parmenides

In ancient Greece, two philosophers emerged who brought to the table an intellectual dispute that has survived to this day. This is the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides, the contest between an eternal future and the immutability of reality.

In this article, we will present the arguments of both pre-Socratic thinkers. Heraclitus comes from an ancient city of Ephesus: Ionia; Parmenides is a native of a city in Elea, southern Italy. Let’s know about his controversy.

How do Heraclitus and Parmenides perceive the change?

Heraclitus is known as the philosopher who most insisted on the future of reality. For him, the movement is an ordered totality. However, it is the product of a dialectic of opposites, as maintained in a work published by the University of Zaragoza.

This way, Heraclitus proposes that the struggle between opposites or contraries are models and agents that cause change. and, therefore, the movement. As paradoxical as it may sound, this generates harmony between opposite elements. The philosopher names them as discord, justice and war, all names that give us an account of this conflict.

So, Change is interpreted as a succession of balances and imbalances between opposing forces. It is in such a way that a reality is created that flows and transforms constantly.

River metaphor

Heraclitus uses the example of the river to illustrate the transience and permanent change of reality. Thus, we consider the river and its waters in different ways. The first is always the same, but its waters are constantly changing. In this sense, it is feasible to affirm that there is no permanence.

Now we can ask ourselves, what happens if I dive into the river? Is it or is it not the same? To answer this question we must differentiate between the river (as a whole), its waters and the bather.

In this way, since its waters flow continuously, bathers perceive the difference in the waters only if they are the same people. But are they actually the same? Aren’t they also subject to change?

The being of Parmenides

This is where the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides begins, as they have different views on change and movement. In his philosophical poem About nature, Parmenides raises the problem of the change of things and the question of being. To do this, he introduces a goddess as a character who guides those who want to know the being.

Being For Parmenides it is what is grasped through reason. Regarding its characteristics, the philosopher describes it as something total and unique, in opposition to the entities or things of the sensible world.

This reality in which we live is subject to change, movement and multiplicity. Therefore, it is not possible for true knowledge to exist about it, as we will see below.

Parmenides’ ways of knowledge

Parmenides proposes two ways of knowing, one is truth and the other is opinion. In relation to truth, he maintains that it represents the path of being and is approached through thought. On his part, the path of opinion is mere appearance and is undertaken through sensation.

Parmenides maintains that the sensible world is inhabited by logical contradictions. This means that there is a continuous passage between being and non-being, thanks to the perpetual change that we encounter in reality. In other words, something that is can cease to be, all to become something else. This is what the movement that Heraclitus illustrated with his metaphor of the river is all about.

Characteristics of being

Magazine Annals of the History of Philosophy Seminar lists a series of characteristics of being, according to Parmenides. First of all, Being is infinite and imperishable. It means that it has no origin and, therefore, is not created.

Besides, Being is perfect and timeless, It is an already constituted whole without beginning or end. In other words, there is no birth, development and death of it, hence its perfection.

It is added as a characteristic that the being is continuous, homogeneous and immobile. Therefore, the being does not admit changes in its essence.

What role does the logos or reason in the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides?

What place does reason occupy in this debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides? In this regard, Heraclitus maintains that the reason or logos It is that law of the universe that governs and governs the movement and transformation of things.

In this way, the logos It is that which is hidden in nature or reality. As such, it has the function of organizing the universe so that it is not a chaotic and disorderly whole, apart from dictating the movement of things.

For his part, Parmenides considers that reason or logos It is the means by which we grasp the being, being itself an intelligible object. In line with this, the path of being, that is, the path of truth, is only followed by reason.

In the same way, it is unthinkable for reason to express non-being, since the moment we are thinking, we think of something. There is no such thing as thinking about nothingness, since this is equivalent to non-thinking.

It is possible to conclude that for Heraclitus reason is what governs and regulates change. Meanwhile, Parmenides considers that this logos It can only express being and not movement. And as we already said, we cannot extract any truth, only opinions based on appearance and sensations.

Are there meeting points between Heraclitus and Parmenides?

An article published by the philosophy magazine A Part King , He maintains that there is a problematic point between both philosophers. The same is the contrast between the senses and intelligence or in relation to the changing and immutable. However, if we follow Nagarjuna’s conception of the intuition of double truth, we get another view.

In this way, we acquire an absolute and a relative point of view. On the one hand, it is undeniable that we live in a world that is constantly changing, it is enough to look at our environment to realize this. Even so, it is possible to appeal to a unitary vision of the universe.

This leads us to consider that There may be a meeting point between both conceptions, through the middle path. This means that we should not oppose or exclude both positions, but consider them as part of the whole.

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